INVASIVE SPECIES: Volunteers Battle

But we were the ones who loved honeysuckle first, and now we’re stuck with it.

“Because it was sold through the nurseries before they knew it was invasive,” says Yellow Banks County Park volunteer, John Harri. “All the nurseries sold it.”

One of many invasive plant species that have turned Iowa’s woodlands into a tangled mess.

“They shade out other things,” Harri says, “and so your other flowers and smaller plants aren’t gonna grow because they don’t get sunlight.”

So for the last decade, volunteers like Harri and Penny Thompson of the Iowa chapter of the Sierra Club have worked with the Polk County Conservation Board, cutting and spraying invasives in our parks.